


All Hail The Mysterious Gap

by Anonymous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eye Trauma, I Am Sorry, Multi, Suicide mentions, bascially i listened to song for pierre chuvin had emotional time and blacked out and wrote this, i never outright say it but it is, jon is trans and was in the mechs, martin doesnt get there until the second chapter but HES THERE I PROMISE, not alot but its there, oops! all mountain goats refrecnes!, the gay fantasy of saying fuck it to your problems and running away, the jondaisy is queerplaonic, theyre brief but theyre there, things are going to be okay for them it just takes a bit, this accidentally gets really into catholic guilt for a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25337467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Instead of learning how assistants could quit, Jon learns how the Archivist is the linchpin that tethers all those in archives together. Armed with this information, he understands what he has to do.Nothing goes according to plan, but maybe that's okay.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Martin Blackwood, Martin Blackwood/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, past Alice "Daisy" Tonner/Basira Hussain
Comments: 44
Kudos: 206
Collections: anonymous





	1. Aulon Raid

An unimportant avatar of the flesh’s brains were scattered across the floor. Daisy was drunk off blood lust and a successful hunt. Basira stood off to the side, still holding her smoking gun. Daisy didn’t know if Basira understood the same car crash of joy-adrenaline-fear-destruction that happened in Daisy’s chest every time they went on a hunt, but she had her suspicions that Basira had felt something when firing the killing shot. 

She turned and gave Basira a grin that was all canines and razor blades as she told Basira that she’d done a great job. 

In that moment, Basira was made of marble, beautiful and steady, as the corners of her mouth upturned.

Hours later, Daisy and Basira were next to each other once again, now in their shared bed, in their shared flat. They didn’t touch much, but their hands were linked under the thin duvet. 

“I think I love you.” Daisy said, brash and fast, not a hit of speculation in her tone.

“I know I love you.” Basira responded, as if it were the only way she could think of answering the question, “We’ll be partners forever, Daisy.”

“Forever.” Daisy whispered.

“Forever.” Basira responded.

They’d fallen asleep like that, repeating forever to each other until holding open their eyes was impossible. 

\----  
When the hunger turns in on itself, it begins to devour its host  
Who do you turn to for help?  
Who do you love the most?  
-January 31, 438  
\----

Daisy awoke to a mind splitting headache. Blinking sleep out of her eyes and memories of a life long gone out of her head, she became aware that she’d dozed off in the middle of the archives. Her neck began to ache as she picked herself off the desk. Serves her right for dozing off in the middle of the day, she thought. There was work she could be doing, things that needed filing, statements that needed research, but she had no drive to do so. It wasn’t like there was anyone to see that she was ignoring any attempt to be productive. No, the archives were especially devoid of productive presence today. Melanie had left early this morning to spend the day with Georgie. Jon was in his office. Martin hadn’t been seen by anyone in almost two weeks, but none of that was particularly new. Basira was out doing research somewhere. Thinking of her dream, Daisy wondered which one of them had broken that forever first. That wasn’t a train of thought she wanted to go down, so Daisy hauled herself up to her feet and ignored how her head spun. 

Might as well stretch her legs, she thought. The archives really hadn’t changed that much since she had first come, investigating the murder of an old man, deep in the thralls of the Hunt. Files were still scattered across the rooms, papers haphazardly stuffed in boxes and manila folders. Everything was still covered in a thick layer of dust. Several shelves still looked like they were more rust than actual metal. The assistant’s desks were still decorated with half researched statements. No one had ever cleaned off Tim or Martin’s desks. Maybe she would do that someday, she thought, as she knew neither of them well enough for the disposal to cause her any real pain past the superficial loss of throwing away a nice pen or two. The only thing that had changed in the actives over the years was the addition of tape recorders. They littered the floor and had taken up residence on any shelf or desk with enough room to fit one. Daisy idly wondered if Gertrude had the same problem. Maybe she sold them on Ebay or something. Hipsters would probably eat up semi-cursed vintage tech like that. 

Daisy eventually came to the door to Jon’s office. Her headache pulsed in the back of her skull. She couldn’t hear anything coming from the room. For a second, Daisy hoped that he hadn’t had to record a statement alone, as she knew he preferred to do it when she was in the room, but she quickly pushed the thought out of her mind. Jon was a grown man and could read a statement on his own. Still, she thought, maybe hearing him read could rid her of her headache. 

She twisted the door handle only to realize it was locked. Odd, Jon tended to leave the door firmly shut, but still unlocked encase anyone needed him. She fished out the key Jon had given her after she started listing in on statements. It was a symbolic gesture, one that Daisy would have shaken off had she not been fished out of the Choke. Instead, Daisy took the key from Jon’s palm and tried not to let the little look of hope in his eyes touch her chest. 

She jimmied the key in the lock until the door slid open, too quietly for hinges that hadn’t been oiled in decades. She expected to see Jon, haggard as ever, sitting at his desk, half buried under loose papers. She expected him to look up at her, give her a quick nod of recognition, and return to being the office-working Sisyphus. 

Instead, Jon was sitting on the edge of his desk, holding an ice pick to his right eye. 

Daisy’s headache vanished.

“What are you doing?” She spit out, words tumbling over one another.

Jon looked up, and his eyes wide, shoulders tensed. 

“I- I,” his shoulder sagged as he visibly deflated, lowering the ice pick. Daisy looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Well, when I was in America, I met someone who knew how to let people leave the Institute.”

Daisy said nothing, looking towards the ice pick.

“All of you are tied to this place, because of me,” he continued, “and so, if I, the Archivist were to- to die, all of the archival assistants would be released.” 

Her back was still ram-rod straight.

“I don’t want to die. I just, I can’t keep you all here.”

Daisy knew he was half lying.

“Its the only way to get everyone out of this. My _powers_ heal almost all of my wounds, but direct damage to my eyes, if severe enough, should…” He trailed off.

If she was still Daisy, the sectioned officer, hardened by years on the force, she would have told him that this was stupid, that they were all so deeply entrenched in this that even if they were somehow free of the Institute, they’d be dragged back into eldritch hell within a month at most. 

If she was still Daisy, almost avatar of the Hunt, she wouldn’t have waited this long, she would have just shoved the pick into his skull and swilled it around until she’d successfully killed another monster.

She was neither, instead, she was Daisy, pulled out of the Buried, made of atrophied muscles and an uncomfortable soft spot for the man who’d saved her

“It should do the job. Kill you forever this time.” Daisy finished. He nodded in response. 

The world spun in Daisy’s chest. Her throat was replaced by the Choke. The weight of the Too-Tight-I-Cannot-Breath bearing down on her breath. She looked at her friend in front of her, and once again took in what a small man Jon was. He barely brushed five foot two on his best days and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds at best. He was haggard and tired. For a moment, Daisy realized why Jon was kidnapped any time someone took their eyes off him, he was so small Daisy could have picked him up with one hand and just walked out of the Institute with him.

A pricking built at the corners of her eyes, and Daisy moved the few feet forward and took the ice pick from Jon’s hands.

He both knew and Knew that she wasn’t going to stop him. She knew that he Knew that what she was going to do wasn’t out of malice or hatred.

“I’ll hold you down if need be. It’ll be quicker if I do it.”

He nodded, laid back on the desk so she could do her work. 

In the moment, Daisy told herself that she was doing this to pay back her debt she owed him. That she was doing this to let him die easily. Let a dead man believe he got penance for the sins he was unknowing forced to commit. 

Daisy shut off the part of her chest that felt soft when she looked at Jonathan Sims, and plunged the ice pick down.

\------

Take note of what will be gone  
In the blink of an eye  
The blue, blue water  
The bone-white sky  
-Going to Lebanon 2  
\------

Daisy was right when she said she’d need to hold him down. As soon as she’d extracted the pick, his right eye skewered through, he began to thrash and shake like a tornado. Limbs flailing, head thrashing, half screams bubbling out of his throat. 

Just as ruthlessly, Daisy brought the pick down upon his other eye, extracted it, and watched him fall still. Empty eye sockets looked back at her. Her grip on the pick tightened. 

He was just another monster, she told herself. This needed to happen. He would have hurt people. You’ve done this before. 

Daisy should have held steady, gotten up, tossed the pick into the little desk trash can with his eyes still on it and walked out. She should have called Basira and told her what she did. She should have left the Institute, ran away with her and recreated that forever they’d talked about. 

Daisy instead looked at the prone body in front of her and felt a calcified thing in her chest break open. 

Jon had been her best friend.

She gathered up his body into her arms and held him as tight as atrophied arms could. Her body shook as she pressed him closer. This was Jon, the man who she had tried to kill. Jon, the man who dove into the Buried to save her for nothing. Jon, who invited her to sit and listen to him read so she wouldn’t have to be alone. Jon, who ordered her take out from every Chinese place in the area until she found her favorite dish. Jon, who listened to hours of the Archers with her for no reason other than that she liked it. Jon, who had cat videos saved to his laptop for the two of them to watch if recording a statement got too intense. Jon, who was so undeniably human.

Daisy couldn’t think, all she could do was squeeze and try to hold Jon as close as she could.

A tape recorder she hadn’t seen clicked off, something that had been binding her soul snapped, and she held him, standing in front of his beaten desk, as the Archivist died in her arms.

\------  
Make it whole again if you can  
Stand in the smoke and say some prayers  
Wave your hand  
-Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons  
\------

Daisy didn’t know how long she stood there, the too still body of Jonathan Sims pressed to her chest. The only clock in his office had run out of batteries when he was in a coma, and had never been replaced. 

The wallpaper in the corners of the room was peeling just a little, and Daisy was crying, hard, into his hair. The floor was scuffed beyond repair and Daisy Toner was breathing ragged and wild. The entire room looked as if it was about to collapse, to fall inwards, and Alice “Daisy” Toner would not have moved a step. 

The cheap office chair looked about ready to fall apart, and Jon Sims was able to gather the energy to move his head.

At first, Daisy assumed shifting under her chin was her, moving the body as she cried. He kept shifting, little by little, until he was able to build up the strength to move his arms. Jon brought his arms up around her back, and with a strength he didn’t have, he held Daisy. Unsure of what to do, his mind stretched out, looking to Know why he couldn’t see but was still alive.

He _couldn’t_ Know. 

It had worked, not how he expected, but it has worked.

“Daisy,” he croaked, “Daisy, I-I think, I don’t think I’m the Archivist anymore.”

Daisy choked on sobs and pulled him away from her. She looked him in the face, and told him with a voice like broken glass, “Good, don’t _ever_ ask that of me again.”

The two of them stood there, both in the other’s arms and in an office that had fallen into disrepair before they ever stepped foot into it.

“I just realized I don’t have a flat anymore. Or anyway to explain this on my resume.”

She snorted into his hair, what an incredibly Jon thing to think about. 

“I’m serious, Daisy, I don’t know where I’ll get a job now! I can’t go back to customer service.”

Daisy didn’t have a job, or a future either. As Jon began to debate the pros and cons of looking for another office job, an idea bloomed in the back of her head.

“Let’s leave,” she said “let’s go. You don’t have a flat, and I don’t want to go back to mine. We’re free Jon, let’s leave.”

“What about the others? We have to tell them and it’s not like we have bags packed, Daisy.”

Plans slipped from her mouth as fast as she could think of them, “I have a car, and we still have Elias and Peter’s credit card information from when you were able to Know it. We can call the others once we're on the way out. I have a safe house in Scotland we can head to. It’ll get us out of the way.”

He appeared to mull this over while she spoke, before looking at her and giving her a small, tentative smile that she would die to protect.

“Well, Daisy, let’s go, we’ll have to leave fast if we want to dodge the traffic.”

\------

Leading a freshly blinded Jon through the archives was more hazardous than Daisy had first expected. Daisy’s grip on his hand was firm, as she tried to guide him up to the parking lot out back. She winced every time she heard him bump into the corner of a desk or side of a self that she hadn’t noticed. Coming to the stairs, she realized that if she led Jon up this way, he’d be a bruised mess before they got half way up. She could nearly see him stumbling and falling as he adjusted to his new lack of sight. 

“Jon,” she said turning to him, “when was the last time someone gave you a piggyback ride?”

“Several years, why do you ask-”

He was cut off with a yelp of surprise as she swept him up and held him by the back of his legs, pressing him to her back. Luckily for both of them, piggyback rides are much like riding a bike, and Jon’s arms automatically came around Daisy’s neck.

\------

Peter Lucas’ take over of the Institute was objectively, a horrible thing. The entire building now had a permanent, seeping sadness through it all, and half the hallways filled themselves with fog when someone walked alone in them.

There should be nothing good about how empty the Institute was at two pm on a Tuesday, but Jon and Daisy were making pies out of piss and vinegar and making a hasty, question-less retreat from the Archives out of Lucas’ stay as head of the Magnus Institute. 

\------  
Change will come  
Stay warm inside the ripple  
Of the Panasonic hum  
It grinds  
And it roars  
Headed somewhere better  
If I have to crawl there on all fours  
-Exegenic Chains  
\------

Once they’d reached the car, Daisy set Jon in the passenger side. As she sat down in the driver’s side, she heard Jon fumbling with the seatbelt for a moment before clicking it into place.

“Not being able to see is going to take a little getting used to.” He tells her, and there’s a smirk present in his voice that she has never heard there. 

“We’ll pick you up a pair of the dark glasses and a cane somewhere. Maybe we can grab a dog and complete the ensemble.”

“I wonder if I could get a seeing eye cat instead, and a pair of glass eyes.”

She snickered under her breath, not because anything was genuinely funny, but simply for the joy of being able too. 

Jon took this as an opportunity to continue, “I think I’ll see if I can get some all black ones. Maybe now that we’re free from bureaucracy I can finally unleash my goth phase.”

Real, genuine, laughter bubbled out from between her teeth as she pulled out of the Institute’s parking lot for the last time.

“Sims, you are the least goth person I have ever met.”

“Hey, I could be goth.”

\------

Twenty five miles into the drive, Jon turned to her and asked, “Do you think I should go to the hospital?”

Daisy looked him over, sitting in the passenger seat of her 1999 Toyota Corolla, his head cocked in thought, with one prominent crease in his brow, dressed like an aged librarian, looking like one strong breeze would knock him over. 

“You don’t look any different than before. Do you feel like you need to go to hospital?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

\------

“Hey Jon, you mind if I put on some music?”

“Not at all, although I do wonder what you listen to.”

“I’ll throw on my favorite band, they’re a real small little group, they had a real cult following for a bit.”

“Are you planning on telling me their name?”

“Naw, I’m sure you wouldn’t know them.”

Jon shakes his head as if he was rolling his eyes and Daisy pops open the CD case and digs out High Noon Over Camelot. 

She presses it into the CD slot and allows herself a deep, calming breath as the first notes of “The Tower” play. She exhales, long and slow, feeling her entire chest ache. But for the first times in years, it's a good ache. Placating and comforting. She’s nothing more than a woman with a man who may be her best friend or may be something completely different. They’re nothing more than two people, in a beaten old car, sharing weird music. The car is just a ragged old vehicle, moving down the streets of London.

Jon makes a strangled sound from the depth of his throat. 

“Daisy, where did you find this band?”

“Back when I was an officer I got called out to inspect them, someone had heard ‘em and thought they were associated with Grifter’s Bone. Turns out they were just some really weird theater kids from Oxford. Well, the music was good, so I picked up a CD and tried to keep an ear out for them. I saw one or two more concerts before they broke up.”

He makes another noise, tentative and full of disbelief.

“Wait, Jon, are you a Mechs fan? I would have never thought it of you! Jonathan Sims, human sweater vest, is a Mechs fan.”

He turned to her, something joyful and confused building up behind his face.

“Did you go to any concerts?” she asks.

“I did, in fact, go to many Mechs concerts.” he answers, the left corner of his mouth pricking upward against everything.

“I wonder if we ever saw each other at a sho-”

Jon cut her off, “Daisy, I think that’s highly likely as I was _in_ the Mechs.”

“No,” her eyes left the road and looked at him, looking both like the cat that got the cream and a man who’d have his deepest secret revealed, “You? The Mechs? _Wait- you’re Jonny D’Ville?_ How?”

“I had my uni days.” he said, with a shrug, as if that even began to explain what he’d just said. 

As Gunfire at Dolorous Guard played, Daisy picked out Jon’s voice, and she wondered how she hadn’t noticed it immediately.

\------

Once and Future King burst from her speakers and Daisy thought about the churches where she’d unwillingly spent her Sundays mornings lifetimes ago. She’d always wondered how the choir of thirty could make so much noise. She’d hoped that it was because of the acoustics of the aged church. She’d feared that it had been what they sung, that their promise of judgement and heaven and eternal forever was true. With everything she’d seen in the two decades since she walked the pews of that church, she believed that it was because they were thirty people who were knitted together by relationships she never knew. 

She moved her left hand from the steering wheel and placed it on the center console, next to Jon’s. Close enough that she felt the ghost of touch against her smallest finger, far enough to be excusable as a mistake.

\------

Some indeterminate time after the end of High Noon Over Camelot, Jon moved his hand, less than an inch, and covered her pinky finger with his.

\------

Entering Lancaster, Daisy realized just how hungry she was. 

“I’m stopping at the nearest McDonald's, what do you want?”

“I’m vegetarian, actually, do you-”

“Jon, why are you vegetarian?”

“Well, I suppose meat just- I simply- well, I- I enjoyed it too much. It felt wrong to indulge like that, especially after all the statements of people suffering.”

“Are you really going to eat the world’s shittest salad just because some people, somewhere out in the world suffered because of something completely unrelated to you?”

“It’s, well, I fed on their fear. I took advantage of that horror.”

Jon was turned towards the window, angling his body as if he was scared to be seen. If Daisy was still the ruthless officer, she would have laughed at how the Watcher incarnate feared being seen. If Daisy was a better, more compassionate person she would have pulled to the side of the road and worked Jon through it all, helped him dislodge whatever guilt was clogging up his soul.

Daisy was neither woman.

“Hell, Jon, maybe that was the moral thing to do then, but you’re out now. You can’t know, and probably can’t feed like you used to.”

Jon looked at her, lead on his shoulders, the weight of the world on his brow.

“Maybe one day, can you just grab me a salad and some water?”

Daisy didn’t know how to comfort him like he needed, so she did the best she could. Twisting her hand so they were palm to palm, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

\------

As Jon grimaced and choked down the world's ugliest salad he reminded Daisy of the Flagellants she’d learned about lifetimes and universes ago. She wondered if any of the Flagellants had people who loved them and took the whips from their hands. She wondered if any of them had someone who wanted something from them, and shoved the whips into their palms, lying to them about salvation and penance. She wondered if there was at least one of them who had someone who’s guts knotted up when they looked upon them and who took the whip from them, only to strike their backs because they both believed it for some nebulous and incomprehensible greater good.

\------

“Daisy, would you tell me if we see any interesting looking book shops?”

“Jon, what do you intend to do in a bookshop?”

“Buy a book.”

“What do you intend to do with the book?”

“Daisy I’m going to read it-- damn.”

\------

Twenty minutes later Jon declared that he’d simply learn braille. 

Twenty one minutes later Daisy replied that they’d find a guide as soon as they settled down.

Twenty three minutes later Jon told Daisy that he couldn’t wait.

Twenty three minutes and thirty seconds later Daisy knew that she couldn’t wait.

\------

After three plays of High Noon Over Camelot and one play of Once Upon A Time In Space, both Jon and Daisy were pretty sick of the Mechs. Daisy wrestled with the ancient radio and after several minutes of twisting and fiddling, it began to spit out some average pop rock station.

Jon started to hum along and after several minutes, Daisy was able to figure out the tune and join in. 

Neither of them knew most of the songs, so they hummed, semi-tunelessly, simply for the joy of making noise. 

Both Daisy and Jon remembered just how quiet the archives always were. How the silent watching pressed down upon them. 

But they weren't in the archives, they were in a small, shitty Toyota, humming to songs half only known.

\------  
Hand me a torch why not  
Let's get some kicks in while the flame's still hot  
-Last Gasp at Calama  
\------

Jon and Daisy quickly learned that average pop rock stations in the middle of England played about five songs on repeat.

Five songs, with lyrics that were easy to learn and melodies that came naturally once you’d heard them ten or so times.

Jon and Daisy also quickly learned that they sounded damn heavenly when they harmonized during Blur’s Song 2.

\-------

Look closely at the shadows  
On the ground beneath the trees  
The labors of Hercules  
Exegenic Chains

\------

Jon had started to cry right after they passed through Newcastle. He’d covered his face at first, and she’d paid the action no mind until his shoulders began to shake. She didn’t know what to say, so she sat quiet as his stable breathing devolved into shuttering sobs. Daisy hated herself a little for wanting to make a joke about how at least his tear ducts were intact. She kept quiet and he tried his best to join her in the endeavor.

“God, I’m sorry, Daisy, I’m such a mess.” He said, finally acknowledging the elephant in the car.

Malformed comfort-apologies-agressions-questions bubbled at the back of her throat and pressed across her mouth, but she kept her teeth clamped shut. 

He continued, moving his hand from his face to wave it in front of him, trying to look casual, “I’ll be fine soon, I know it’s distracting. I’m sorry--”

“Stop apologizing. I don’t care.” The words slipped forward through a gap in her front teeth before she could stop them.

He didn’t react, at least not in a way her hunt-less, sober senses could pick up. Too cold, she thought. Those were the words of a Daisy she lost a part of but who still rears her head sometimes, of a woman she no longer wishes to be, but is at times. 

She searched for something else to say, to pad her words, but everything that once filled her mouth had run dry. Still, she scourged through every crack and crevice of herself until she pieced together a continuation.

“I mean, I,” she took a deep breath, “I do care. Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” 

The words were a stiff olive branch, leaves curled and arms brittle from years of un-use, but she held it out to him, as the best she could do.

He took it in his hands, gentle in a way Daisy forgot people could be, and he held it impossibly tight.

“Thank you, Daisy,” she’s never known someone who said her name the way he does, “I just, well, I remembered that Martin is still there. In the Institute I mean. I left him there. After everything I just abandoned him!”

Daisy understood that they had been friends and that Martin had been Jon’s assistant through all of it, but she hadn’t expected Jon to miss him anymore then he did Melanie or Basira. 

He chuckled, dry as his cheeks were wet, “I’m just like Gertrude. I left them all and thought nothing of it.”

This missing was how he missed Tim or Sasha. A hole as ragged as his breathing.

“Maybe I still am a monster.”

“That’s bullshit, Jon,” she cut in, unequipped to help but willing to try, “you aren't responsible for him. I understand you care about him, but you can’t martyr yourself for him. God, Jon, you tried. You were going to gorge your eyes out for him.”

How Daisy wishes now that she could believe that he’d done it for her, or for all of them. The broken glass and confused feelings trapped in her lungs were not important right now. 

“Martin is an adult man. He can make his own choices. You did more than your part and freed him, what he does next is up to him. He’ll be okay, he’ll be okay.” She finished.

She moved one hand off the wheel and onto his bony shoulder. It stiffened and then melded into her touch. 

“I asked him about it first. I-I asked him to help me with it. To run away with me.”

Ice in her chest and acid in her lungs. Daisy doesn’t want to hear it, but must. She imagines a world where Jon told her first. She doesn’t know if it would have changed anything.

“And he said no?” she asked.

“He told me I was using him as an excuse not to do it.” his voice was stale.

Daisy’s brow tightened, and unpolished words slipped forward, “What an asshole.”

Jon made a noise like she’d dumped cold water on him. She continued.

“He was nice to you, and I understand you miss him, but he was an asshole. He just ditches us half way through your coma because he got contacted by Elias’ shitty, sea-faring replacement who gave him some important task and a holier than thou attitude. He was an adult man. He can handle himself. You can’t stay by his side forever to help him if he spits in your face the entire time.”

Jon is silent, but leans even more into her touch. She realized he’s close enough for her to sling her arm over his shoulders, and she does so. 

She’s not confident enough to say that she made his concerns vanish, but half-kind words and warm touches balm his fears for the moment, and that is all he needs.

\------

Daisy pulled up to the gas station as the sun was just cresting the horizon. She filled the tanks quickly, and just as she was about to pull herself back into the car, she thought of something.

“Jon, wait here in the car for a moment.”

She stormed into the little store attached to the station, and pulled out Elias Bouchard’s stolen credit card, and bought as many sweets as she could carry in her arms.

Once back in the car, she spilled her bounty between the two of them, wolfish grin spread across her face.

“What are all these?”

“All the sweets Bouchard’s credit card could buy.”

Jon was quiet for a minute before replying.

“I never really went on many road trips with my Gran, but I did always think about looting the gas station for all they had when I was a kid.”

Her grin spread to his face as he reached into the spread and began to unwrap a Mars bar.

“Exactly, we’re adults, Jon, no one can stop us from buying all the damn candy we want.”

She pulled out a Curly Wurly and bit in.

\------

All your abandoned things  
Once fine vestments, statues with wings  
They have their uses, every one  
Let me slither across them in the sun  
-For the Snakes  
\------

Daisy’s phone had been on silent and it was so easy to ignore when it was on silent. So easy, Daisy is sure she would have never noticed that it was ringing if Jon hadn’t heard it hit the car floor after falling out of her pocked. He reached down and fished it out while it vibrated in his hand.

He handed it to her, silent.

The caller ID read out Basira.

“If it’s one of them, you can put it on speaker phone, I’ll tell them what happened.” Jon said, voice quiet and tender.

Daisy held the phone as it vibrated thrice more and then fell still.

The screen showed that it was the latest of six missed calls from Basira and that Melanie had tried to call her twice.

“I’m just not ready.” Daisy didn’t want to say it, she didn’t want to have this conversation, but looking at Jon, at small, kind, Jon who offered to take the brunt of their former co-workers’ anger for her, and she knew that they both needed to have this conversation.

“We need to tell them eventually.”

“They must have felt the bond break like I did. They know they can leave.”

“We still owe them an explanation, some closure.”

“Owe them for what? For leaving you to become a monster or get yourself killed? For hating you? For moving on without you? For deciding that you’re not a useful enough tool to be worth investing time in after everything? For losing whatever you had with them so they could drown themselves in research?”

Daisy hadn’t realized she had pulled over and stopped by the side of the road or that she was crying until a fumbling hand met her cheek and wiped a tear that had barely fallen.

Jon didn’t know what to tell her and Daisy didn’t know what she needed to hear. He was lost, but he gave her what he could.

Basira was still out there, nearly three hundred miles away, surrounded by forevers that ended and futures that were never going to happen.

Jon was right there, scared and burnt palm on her cheek, thumb brushing circles below her eye, drenched in past mistakes he'd accepted and devoid of expectations. 

“Well talk to them later. We can formulate a script and everything, if it helps.” he murmured, quiet as the soft brush of wind against the grass outside.

Daisy held his hand in place.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

\------

On the hopeful  
And the cunning  
And the faithful  
The well-positioned  
Filthy but graceful  
-Last Grasp at Calama

\------

Jon fell asleep somewhere past Alnwick, curled against the window. Daisy knew his neck would have an awful crick in it the next day. Yet, she couldn’t move herself to wake him. Instead she watched from the corner of her eye as the streetlamps and stars lit up his profile. He looked regal in a way he never did when he was awake. This was probably the longest he’d slept in years, Daisy thought. With that, she blinked the sleep out of her eyes and re-focused, wanting to be at her safe house as soon as she could be. Jon and her would get to sleep in real beds again.


	2. Exegetic Chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! real quick before reading i feel the need to mention that theyres a very small amount of church related homophobia referenced in this chapter! its small but i wanted to mention it in case its anyone's trigger
> 
> (also just as a part of this au Jehova's Whitness are a thing in Scotland)

The cabin had always been a little cold, a little drafty, and a little under stocked. Once, Daisy had wanted it to be nothing else. She’d loved how the brush of wind over her arms would send her senses into overdrive, how the chill and the scarce food made it easier to herself thrive off the Hunt. In between blood-lust fueled thralls, she’d daydreamed about being there with Basira. The two of them lean and sharp, focused as they planned their next kill.

Now, she wanted nothing more than to reseal every crack, to install a heating system, and to stock the pantries to bursting. Something in her cracked a little when Jon shivered or had to search through multiple shelves to find something for them to eat.

\------

“Daisy, there’s only one bed here.”

“Hm.”

“Hm, indeed. I’ll take the couch.”

“No you won’t. You have enough pain already.”

“And you don’t?”

“No comment.”

\------

They’d come to an agreement that they’d switch off every other night. Either way, Daisy was comfortable. The bed was easy to sleep on and the couch was a little cold and stiff but she rested well knowing that Jon was getting sleep himself.

\------

Let he who's without sin  
Throw the first one, like you said  
Let anyone else throw the second  
As long as it connects with your head  
-Last Gap at Calama

\------

Daisy’s phone call with Basira had been done the day after they settled into the cabin. It had been done on speaker phone and as the first dial tone wrung out, Jon reached and grasped Daisy’s hand. 

“Where are you?” Basira’s crisp tone cut through Daisy like a knife through paper. Jon squeezed her hand.

“I’m at a safe house right now.” she said. _I’m safe_ she would have said if she thought it mattered.

“You know what happened at the Institute then?” It was as much a question as it was an accusation as it was completely Basira.

“Yes.” she didn’t know what more to say.

“And you just left?” 

Left what, Daisy wondered, left our prison when we’d been freed or left the woman who was supposed to be her partner.

“Yes.” Daisy couldn’t find more to say. Jon gave her hand another squeeze and she took a deep breath.

“What are you out hunting?” She couldn’t tell if this was Basira jabbing at her or if this was Basira looking for a scrap of whatever they lost. If she was searching to find an excuse to go back to hunt-drunken nights and the police work and their promises of forever.

Daisy ached, but it was a shred too little a second too late. Going back wasn’t good for her, as much as leaving hurt.

“I want something outside of it all. I’m tired, you understand, don’t you, Basira?”

How odd it felt to feel her name on her lips again. Bittersweet, reminding Daisy of black coffee in the morning.

“No, no I don’t.” The reply was clipped, cold, and wrung out with hurt.

The line went dead soon after. Jon’s hand moved from her own and slipped over her shoulder, bringing her in tight. She curled around him, and he pulled his fingers through her hair as she cried for longer then she felt she had any right too after she was the one who ended things. He murmured half-heard comforts and held her tight. 

\------

Look closely at the shadows  
On the ground beneath the trees  
The labors of Hercules  
\- Exegenic Chains

\------

Two days into their occupation of the cabin, Daisy took Jon on a ten minute walk to the grocery store in the adjacent town. He’d tapped his cane against a low stone wall the entire way, committing the path to memory. Once there, they filled the cart with everything they could want.

Three and a half weeks into their time in the little cottage, Daisy helped Jon install a text to speech program on the laptop she’d kept at the cabin and they spent the next two hours looking for the best blankets Amazon could offer.

Four months into their life in their home, Jon came back from the town with a twenty pound bucket of crack sealer and two putty knives. He told her he noticed how she hated the gusts that would seep in from the cracks, and she felt softer than the blankets they layered the couch and bed with. They stayed up until three in the morning that day, sealing cracks and being together.

\-------

Before they've even opened their eyes  
Picture them scouring the sanctuary  
Looking for gold  
It never gets old  
Going to Lebanon 2

\------

Decades ago, when she still spent her Sunday mornings in the back of a Church that was supposed to be ‘her Church’ but never really was, a nun who worked there had taught the twenty or so gathered children about the domestic church. She’d never enjoyed Sunday School, always wishing she could be playing outside instead, but that day was especially difficult for her. The nun had told them how they were all destined to honor God in their future homes. That all the girls in the class would grow up and be good, loyal wives and that the boys would become strong, God-fearing men. That God’s law would be felt and honored all throughout the home. That this was what God wanted. 

Daisy had looked at the slim, dress-wearing, smiling woman in her paperback textbook, and felt like she was looking at a reflection of everything she was not. She saw no room in God’s vision for women who used to be girls like Daisy. No room for girls who felt as if they liked other girls as much as they did boys. 

These were all things Daisy knew to be true. They’d been a present, presumed miasma surrounding them all for all of her life, but seeing it spelled out on the page in front of her made Daisy feel truly alone.

\------

Daisy couldn’t remember when, or even if Jon had ever asked for her help with his shots, but now, every day before bed, she’d walk with him into the bathroom and gather up all the supplies they’d need. He’d sit on the edge of the small tub, and she’d cover a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, and wipe off the side of his left thigh. She’d kneel in front of him, screw off the little bottle’s cap, and occasionally look up to steal a fond glance of him. She’d fill the syringe, tap it until all the bubbles were gone, and correct the dosage. She’d take a moment to double check everything, make sure she hadn’t missed a step, he’d usually ask her what was taking her so long, his tone heavy with snark, and she’d stick the needle in him, laughter on her lips.

Kneeling on the floor in front of Jon, Daisy remembered the nun and her teaching about the domestic church. Maybe Daisy didn’t believe in the God that woman had preached, and maybe the two person family they had between them wasn’t anything close to what she had meant when she spoke of families of faith, but there was certainly something sacred about the small intimacies between the two of them.

\------

Brains were scattered across the floor. The world was blurred with gore. Her nails had grown to ragged claws. Her head pounded as new, sharp teeth pushed out her molars. She heard the click of a gun, now loaded, the crunch of bones breaking against concrete, the steady drip of blood.

She was holding a knife to the throat of a figure with a hundred faces, shifting between them all. She couldn’t tell who she was looking at, as the features melded and moved too fast for her eyes to catch. She cursed herself for being too far separate from the hunt, it must be dulling her senses. 

Just for a second, the thing in her arms had one scared and scarred face. 

Ice shot through her guts, and she drew the knife deep through his throat.

Blood shot out from the wound, gushing harder and harder, filling the room. It was up to her knees before realizing the room had no means of escape. 

The tide of blood was now racing up the walls, giving her only seconds to adjust before she’d had to start padding to keep her head above it.

Seconds later, her head hit the top of the room, and the crushing weight of it all hit her. She drew as best a breath as she could, and was consumed by the hot, red blood.

The liquid around her began to coagulate immediately. Stiff and clinging, caking her limbs and making it impossible to swim. The entire room was filled now, with crumbling, solid, iron-filled blood. 

She had to crawl, to dig her way out, but she didn’t know which way was up or which was down. She thrust her hand out, but the guide she wished was there was absent.

She was alone, and she would die buried here.

\------

Daisy awoke with a start. Her breath came to her in short, pained gasps. She could still feel the weight of the Buried pressing down on her. 

Kicking off the blankets, she got off the bed and hauled herself to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Walking to the sink, Daisy saw the couch out of the corner of her eye. She should let him sleep, she thought. What would he even say, she told herself. 

Her legs didn’t listen, and her hand was shaking his shoulder before she could process the action.

He rubbed his eyelids and looked up at her with his glass eyes. 

“What’s up?” he asks, sleep slurring his words.

“Nightmare.” 

As if the words were magic, they summoned him into motion. He shoved the blankets off and pushed himself into a sitting position

The now empty space was an invitation to sit down, but Daisy felt like any contact would be suffocating. 

Jon didn’t ask for her to sit down, instead he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” 

That wasn’t the answer that would help Daisy fix her problems. She hadn’t been able to start digging herself out of the Buried alone and she wasn’t enough of a fool to believe she could finish freeing herself on her own. 

She tried again.

“Yes, I do.”

Jon waited for her to continue. She tried to find the words but couldn’t. Instead, she crumbled in on herself, head hanging low.

“No, I can’t. Not right now.”

“It’s okay. We can talk another time.”

He took her hand in his. The hand he’d clasp around hers when they crawled through the depths of the Too-Tight-I-Cannot-Breathe.

He didn’t move to touch her otherwise, and she was grateful.

“Maybe we can find a spooky therapist.” 

He looked as if she had held spoiled milk under his nose when she said ‘spooky therapist’.

“What, Jon, did you never read a statement about a spooky self-help counselor?”

Crow’s feet bloomed at the corners of his eyes as he gathered himself up and pulled out the dramatic tone he’d used for statements.

“Statement of Joe Don, regarding a therapist who was actually made of worms.”

Her shoulders heaved with laughter as Jon continued narrating a fictional statement about a therapist named Dr. Worm. 

\------

“Jon, what should we make for dinner tonight?” Daisy called from the kitchen. 

“I don’t know!” he responded, as quickly as the question had left her mouth.

That had become his favorite reply as of late. A little triumph, a daily reminder that he was free of the pressing knowledge of an eldritch eye god.

It was also his favorite way to bug Daisy.

“Alright, you dork, I’m just making the oven bake lasagna then.”

“Need any help?” he asked, closing his book and pulling the blanket off his lap.

“No, I’m all good, I’ll join you on the couch in a moment.”

\------

Preheating the oven and getting out the frozen lasagna was an easy action. Sliding the pasta into the warm oven was a thoughtless motion. Walking over to the couch, moving Jon’s book, and laying her head into his lap was second nature. 

He huffed and rearranged his book, freeing his hand so he could pet her hair.

She fell into an easy haze, in and out of sleep with the movement of his hand.

\------

“Daisy,” he shook her shoulder, “Daisy, how long was the lasagna supposed to be in the oven?” 

“Half an hour.” she mumbled, turning her head to snuggle back into his lap.

“Daisy, it’s been an hour and I think something is burning.”

That woke Daisy up quick.

“Shit.”

“Shit indeed.”

\------

Jon dialed the closest Italian place for take out while Daisy excavated the charcoal like remains of the Nestles Stouffer's Vegetable Lasagna from their oven.

\------

Join in the rebuilding  
Sing loudly at your labor  
Make friends with the new guys  
Be nice to your neighbor  
-Until Olympus Returns

\------

Sitting across from Jon at their dining table, six months since either of them had stepped foot in the Institute, she looked at both of them.

He looked so much better than he ever had before. He still looked a little disheveled, but it was because of his habit of throwing himself into passion projects rather than supernatural stress bearing down on his shoulders. Jon had about eight different books about Mexican folklore that he flipped between, seemingly at random. He scribbled notes on a dog eared notebook in front of him. She’d asked why he kept so many notes weeks ago and he’d simply told her that it felt right. She picked up a set of five clean, utilitarian spiral bound notebooks from the shop the next day and he’s taken to aggressively filling them with notes on every topic under the sun. 

She didn’t really know if she looked any different. She felt different certainly, but she’d never spent much time looking in mirrors. She still wore the same clothes she would have worn during her time on the force. Her hair still hung the exact same way it had the day she crawled out of the Choke. Her side of the table was bare, one leg propped up by a book Jon had already read. 

“I think I’m going to cut my hair.” she said.

“Hm? Do you want help?”

She snorted.

“Ah yes,” he continued, “giving a blind man a set of clippers may not give you the best haircut.”

She looked at him again, moving forward to lean on her elbows and support her head with her hands.

“I would like your help, actually. Could you be there?”

“Of course.” he said, like second nature.

\------

Daisy, the police officer, cut her hair with steel scissors every two weeks on the dot. She kept it bobbed at her jawline, practical and cold.

Daisy, the almost avatar of the Hunt, cut her hair only when absolutely necessary. It grew long and knotted, matted with sweat and rage. 

Daisy, the woman who did not yet know who she was, cut her hair whenever she saw it was a tad too long or when Jon mentioned feeling her split ends when he moved his hand through her hair. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, Jon’s hand on her thigh as he sat on the edge of the tub. She pulled the electric razor in controlled lines, letting the discarded hair fall to the ground. She kept it buzzed, tight on the sides but loose on top.

\------

Daisy decided that she would be Daisy, the woman who was trying to be better. 

\------

Her hand lingered on his shoulder. He held her wrist and moved her palm until it covered his scarred throat.

She didn’t apologize, because words would never be enough.

He didn’t placate her with words, because verbal affirmation would have felt fake.

She moved his hand to cover her throat.

They were going to be okay

\------

Come riding with your soldiers  
See how they fare  
Keep yourself out of the action  
Arrows flying through the air  
Your reputation precedes you  
Something must be done  
Here in the heat of the onslaught  
I am the one  
-Aulon Raid  
\------

For as long as Daisy had owned the cabin, no one had ever knocked on the door. Daisy had never had anyone in the house who’d feel they needed permission to enter. The cabin itself was far enough from the adjacent town that people didn’t come by to sell things or give out advertisements. Although they were social, they didn’t have anyone in town who’d drop by. 

For as long as Daisy had owned the little cabin, no one had ever knocked on the old oak door, until one foggy Wednesday afternoon.

No one had ever knocked on the door, until someone had.

The rattle of knuckles against wood shattered the quiet peace in the cottage. 

\------

The burden of exile  
Gets easy to bear  
Sometimes forget  
There's cities down there  
-The Wooded Hills Along the Black sea

\------

“I’ll get it.” said Daisy, already halfway to their front door.

Pushing it open and interrupting another knock, Daisy saw a man she thought she’d never seen again.

Martin stood frozen in the doorway, hand still lifted to where the door was. 

Daisy thought how easy it would have been to close the door in his face. To lock it and let Martin see himself out. To tell Jon that it had been a Jehovah's Witness trying to teach them about the truth of God, or something else they could have laughed about in the comfortable warmth of their house.

Daisy did none of those things, simply standing in front of the man, tilting her head slightly upwards to make eye contact with him. He stood, soaked in blue tone colors, his very face appearing gray and dulled. The outside seemed so much colder than the sepia stained insides of the cabin.

Suddenly, he was looking at her and she was looking at him and they felt like it was never supposed to come to no goddamn good no matter what anybody says.

He looked dead on his feet, shoulders hunched from carrying a coffin that was missing its intended body, resigned grief on his brow. 

He opened his mouth, to finish what was supposed to be old business and rip open what was supposed to be old wounds.

But for better or worse they must have waited a second too long and the outside and for better or worse things never seemed to turn out as they were supposed to, as Jon soon called, “Daisy, everything alright? You’re letting a breeze in.”

Just like that, life snapped back into Martin.

“Jon? Jon, you’re alive!?”

“Martin, is that you?”

The Martin Daisy had investigated for murder was a timid, self-conscious man and she’d believed both the Martin who’d been enlisted by Peter Lucas and the Martin on her doorstep to be essentially the same, if not a little ruder.

The Martin she thought she knew would have profusely apologized if he brushed her arm in the hallway.

The Martin who showed up to her house, fog at his heels and resignation on his face, instead, pushed her aside and strode into the cabin. 

“We thought you died, that you were killed.” Martin answered.

“Why?”

“You dropped off the face of the Earth and we found your eyeballs in the rubbish bin! How could we not think you were dead?” Martin answered, tone creeping into the hysterical as color creeped into his face.

“I-I’m okay, Martin. I’m not dead, I’ve been here with Daisy.”

“Oh,” Martin seethed, mockery pulling itself into his tone with shaky arms, “ _safe with Daisy_ The same Daisy who slaughtered avatars for fun? The same Daisy who was consumed by the Hunt? The same Daisy who tried to kill you?”

Daisy fought every muscle in her body as she struggled not to punch Martin in his angered face. She settled to picking a scab on her knuckle.

“Does that seem perfectly safe to you, Jon? Because to me it looks like whatever you did to your eyes, you did to your mind too!”

“Martin…”

“What, Jon, what could you possibly have to say?”

“Martin, I missed you.”

And whatever cold, hard, fog-clouded thing had grown hard in Martin’s heart shattered, like pouring hot water on frozen glass. Daisy could almost hear it.

Tears bubbled up in his eyes and coated his cheeks. Jon buried his hand in Martin’s grey-streaked ginger hair and cried into his shoulder. Martin was in Jon’s arms and Jon was in Martin’s arms, and they appeared as if they were made to be there.

Daisy didn’t know where to stand, so she shuffled her feet and continued to silently watch.

\------

“I’m not leaving, I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have a flat anymore, I’ve just been living out of the Institute.” he said, _I can’t bear to leave you again._ he did not say.

“You can stay here, Martin, we’ll find room.”

\------

Meet some people  
Make some friends  
How long 'til we get sent back to the mountains?  
It all depends  
-Hopeful Assassins of Zeno

\------

“So he’s staying?” It wasn’t as much of a question as Daisy would have liked it to be.

“Yes,” Jon said, steady as an ox, “he is. We can make room. He’s come to us and he’s made the choice to get better. We can’t leave him.”

This wasn’t a battle Daisy could win, nor one she was even sure she wanted to have.

“Okay, he can stay, but where is he going to sleep?”

“Daisy,” he said, almost exasperated, “Martin will sleep on the couch.”

“And I will sleep?”

“On the bed.”

“And _you_ will sleep?”

“On the be-” he took pause, “Oh.”

“Oh indeed.”

“Well, hm, I can sleep on the floor.”

Daisy looked Jon up and down, hoping that she was raising her eyebrow hard enough that he was able to understand.

“No, you’re not, Jon. Look, we can just share the bed. It’s large enough.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

\------

Daisy discovered three new things about Jonathan Sims that night, and one new thing about herself.

Jon slept under no less than three blankets piled on top of him. While he was amicable to redistribute blankets and pillows while awake, he was a greedy tyrant while asleep. Jon had remarkably cold feet that seemed to gravitate to whatever was warm and under the covers.

Daisy found out that she really didn’t mind any of it.

\------

Daisy wished Martin stood out a little more than he did. She wished he’d had a little more of a struggle slipping into her and Jon’s little home. Unfortunately, Martin adapted to them like a slightly lonely fish to water.

He’d learned her tea preferences oddy fast, especially considering she hadn’t known she had tea preferences until he arrived.

Martin still moved just a little too quietly and certainly favored Jon over her, but he’d held his tongue, played nice, and tried to smooth the parts of himself the Lonely had made rough.

Daisy tried not to be the Daisy who’d look for any rough patch and latch on, pouring salt and lemon juice into the wound until he’d snap.

Jon had assured her he was trustworthy, and she had no reason to fear him, and yet, she wanted him to show some kind of true colors soon.

\------

Three people sitting in silence around a table with only two nice chairs and one fold out one from a closet, was no ideal meal setup.

Yet, here they were. Eating a rice and chicken dish Jon had made, with both Martin and Daisy’s help.

Even the scrapes of cutlery across mismatched plates seemed muffled, as if they were actually happening from a room away.

It made Daisy’s shoulder’s raise. She was about to say something, to ask Martin to take whatever he was doing outside, but Jon cut her off before she could form the words.

“We should get a cat.”

“What?” questioned Martin.

“What.” stated Daisy.

“A cat. It’s a small animal, usually fluffy, with cute faces.”

“I know what a cat is, Jon.” Daisy deadpanned.

“Wonderful. We’ll pick one up from the shelter tomorrow when we do a grocery run.”

\------

“Jon, d’you think we could slip some sweets past Daisy?”

“Hm?”

“I noticed you don’t have any biscuits at home, and Daisy’s probably such a health nut, we could sneak some in if you want any.”

“Martin, do you want some biscuits?”

“... Yes.”

“Good, I do too.”

Daisy took that moment to come around the corner, starting Martin and causing Jon’s trademark I-knew-something-you-didn’t face to make an appearance.

She dumped three boxes of biscuits into the cart. Shortbread for herself, Jaffa Cakes for Martin, and Jammie Dodgers for Jon.

Martin noticed, and looked at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“How’d you-- Thanks for grabbing them.”

“I noticed they’re the ones you mentioned liking a few days ago.” she replied to his unfinished question.

\-------

The Pretty Paws Pet Shelter was barely two rooms. Squished between a coffee shop and a funeral home. The air was thick with pet hair as the trio stepped into the reception area.

The woman at the counter simply stared at them when they walked in, and Daisy thought about what a sight they must have made, a tall, ginger, teddy bear of a man, a woman who appeared to be made of all stringy muscle and hard angles, and a short, blind man who looked as if he’d been thrown through a knife factory.

Jon had already bent down and extended his hand for the cat that had been weaving its way around his ankles to sniff at.

Daisy cleared her throat, spurring both the attendant and Jon into speaking. 

“Hello, welcome to Pretty Paws Pet Shelter, can I help you with something?”

“We’d like to adopt a cat.”

The attendant, named Mildred, had led them to the back room where the majority of the cats roamed.

How odd Daisy felt, in that moment, surrounded by so many small animals. Nearly thirty five small predators in a room. Thirty six if you counted Daisy. Daisy didn’t want to count herself.

Martin hovered with her at the precipice of the room, while Jon had sat down towards the center of the room, allowing several cats to walk all over his lap.

One raised eyebrow in their general direction, and Martin and Daisy priced themselves off of the wall and walked towards Jon.

Daisy sat down first, followed by Martin. She didn’t want to touch the cats. Too feel how fragile their bones were, how steady their heartbeats were. She suspected Martin was so adjusted to the touch of cold fog that the warm fur scared him.

Unfortunately for both of them, a fat black and white cat left Jon’s lap when they sat down, and walked straight for them.

Sitting in front them, the cat flicked its gaze between Daisy and Martin, before letting out a slow meow, asking to be pet.

Daisy moved her hand forward slowly, pretending she didn’t see the tremor in her hand. 

The cat sniffed her fingers and quickly planted its head under her palm.

She went stiff, prepared to feel the Hunt crashing through her veins.

The cat rubbed against her hand.

Nothing came.

She let go of a breath she hadn’t known she was holding and began to bring her hand down the side of the cat. 

Eventually the black and white cat got bored of her and wandered over to Martin, performing a similar song and dance until he began to pet it in earnest.

All three of them knew what cat they’d be getting.

———

“So what are we going to name him? Oreo?”

“We are not going to name the cat Oreo.”

“Martin, I have to agree with Daisy, he deserves a more dignified name then Oreo.”

“Yes, we should name him Penguin.”

“Penguin? Daisy, how in the world is that better than Oreo?”

“Neither if you have any idea how to name cats. His name should be The Commander.”

“The Commander!?”

“ _The Commander?_ ”

“The Commander.”

\-------

Unfortunately for the poor cat, Jon dug his heels down and insisted that he should be given a proper title and rank. Neither Daisy nor Martin knew any good naval ranks and The Commander seemed to get used to the name quickly. 

\------

Crushed like a sea shell by a sea-side warrior's foot  
Trying to turn the tide  
When the hunger's all that holds you together  
Who do you want by your side?  
-January, 31, 438

\------

Daisy was awoken by a cold gust of air and a kick to her upper thigh. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she looked over to see Jon in the thralls of a nightmare, thrashing under his blanket pile.

She quickly shook him awake and flinched backwards after seeing the fear in his face when he realized there was someone near him.

“Daisy, I-”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t know what to say, and neither did she.

The moonlight caught the jagged scar across his throat. She couldn’t comfort, she could only hurt.

She should have offered to go get Martin, who may have been changed by the Lonely but was much more of a caretaker then she could ever be. She should have gotten up and got Jon a warm cup of tea while Martin talked about his nightmare with him. She should have made herself scarce because she was the exact kind of monster that had given nightmares like that.

She did none of those things.

Daisy didn’t know who embraced who first, but they were tangled in each other’s arms within seconds. 

\------

Daisy sat at the kitchen table, perfect tea in a slightly chipped mug in her hands when she heard a loud gasp. She looked up with shock, mind running wild with horrible possibilities.

But, no, a vengeful avatar was not knocking at their door, nor had Jon or Martin been hurt. No, instead Martin had pressed himself to the window, eyes alight with joy.

Daisy got up and walked until she could see what had caused such a reaction.

Highland cows.

“They look so soft.” Martin said, awestruck.

The corner of Daisy’s mouth hooked upwards, she could appreciate a man who found that much joy from a few fluffy cows.

\------

Learning to knit was a struggle at first. 

Jon had heard the clacking of Martin’s needles and had demanded Martin help him learn, and if Jon and Martin were both going to knit, Daisy would have to learn to knit too.

They were lucky Martin was a patient teacher, as teaching an incredibly stubborn blind man and a woman whose hands had never been used for such a delicate task was a struggle.

Somehow, through many broken needles, dropped stitches, and half watched reruns of game shows, they had learned.

She was learning rib stitches while she learned to use her hands for something constructive, how to be something other than a Hunter.

Martin was learning three new cable stitches while he learned how to talk with people again, how to be something other than Lonely.

Jon was learning seed stitches while learning how to love the people who he’d feared and pushed away, how to be something other than a Watcher.

\------

Eventually they each made a blanket that joined the piles of blankets Daisy and Jon had bought months ago.

Daisy would never say it, but the handmade blankets always felt so much warmer.

\------

After four decades and hundreds of Daisys, Daisy had found that she was incredibly hard to love. Loving her had no sacramental character, and instead had to be an uphill battle.

For three and a little more than half a decade, she had believed it a Sisyphean task, and she held everyone at arm’s length, lest she have to pity their attempt to love her.

She’d believed she’d die, surrounded by blood and gunshots, completely alone in the world.

Yet, here she was, on an overstuffed couch, only half watching the Jeopardy game on TV, Martin leaning against her side, Jon laying across their legs, The Commander on Jon’s chest, surrounded by people who woke up every morning and chose to love her.

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as she weaved her left hand into Martin’s right and her right hand into Jon’s hair.

Daisy Tonner may have no longer believed in any kind God, especially not a Christian one, and she certainly no longer believed in the eternal salvation preached to her in her youth, but sitting there, surrounded by warmth and two people and a cat who loved her, she could not deny she believed in temporary salvation.

\------

Change will come  
Stay warm inside the ripple  
Of the panasonic hum  
It grinds and it roars  
Headed somewhere better  
If I have to crawl there on all fours  
\- Exegenic chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO ANYWAY MY SCHEDULE DID FUCK ME OVER AND IT TOOK ASS LONG TO FINISH THIS. also thank u sm too L_Imperatrice for commenting and motivating me to actually finish this shit show,, go read their fic, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, its really really good and i dig the shit out of it..
> 
> also inspiration for the scene where Daisy touches Jon's neck scar comes from this comic! https://lo-fi-charming.tumblr.com/post/617426763034902528/thinking-about-scars
> 
> also would any yall be interested if i were to write a chatfic or a steven unviverse au? idk what im gonna do next :-P

**Author's Note:**

> just a quick lil thing i wrote! the second chapter should be out soon unless my schedule royally fucks me over again!
> 
> also this is how i think the confrontation w gerry went down.  
> it’s america. jon has been kidnapped (again). hes just popped open the skin book and is chatting w gerry  
> gerry: hey yeah we’re friends now and i'm real sorry you have to literally burn me alive (un-alive?) in a few minutes but i just thought i’d take a minute to tell you that you have to blind urself (u will prolly die) if you want to free your friends from evil eyeball servitude  
> jon:hey wait what the fuck?  
> gerry: peace out dude *burns alive*
> 
> edit (7/28/20): i added another scene and changed some minor wording


End file.
